Analysis Of On Being A Cripple By Nancy Mairs

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Take a second and imagine yourself as an elderly 72-year-old person, struggling with a dreadful disease, multiple sclerosis. According to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, multiple sclerosis is a defined as a disabled disease of the central nervous system that disrupts the flow of information within the brain, and between the brain and body (insert citation). With this picture in your head, think about how society may view you. Think about the struggles you would undergo daily. Most importantly, think about how other people would label you. Personally, would you prefer to be characterized as handicapped, disabled, differently abled, or crippled? While these names may sound a bit harsh, Nancy Mairs, the author of an article called “On Being a Cripple, easily chose her preference. Among the several …show more content…

For an entire week, Mairs thought she was going to die while waiting for her test results. Could you even begin to imagine the anxiety, impatience, or dismay you would endure while waiting for life or death test results? It took her approximately 604,800 entire seconds to realize that life is a gift. I personally believe that this is her purpose for writing this essay—to compel her audience to grasp that life is indeed a gift. Throughout the essay, Mairs complains about her daily struggles, comparing her life to others; however, by the end of the essay, she accepts the fact that she will never trade places with anyone because she is finally learning how to cope with it. She has lived with the disease, received her stamp of approval, and accepted it as a second chance at life. In my opinion, Mairs wants to reach out to those who are also struggling with social acceptance. She wants her audience to have a visual understanding of MS and accept the new and divergent perspective of “crippled

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